In case you were wondering, the NBA Playoffs are not over yet

Life gets busy, so at times, we need to forgive ourselves for not staying completely current on the happenings outside our own bubble.

One piece of news that might catch a few off guard is that the NBA playoffs are not over yet, but not staying up-to-date on this warrants no self-pardon. The one needing forgiveness is the NBA, not the fans.

If you are not a Lakers or Magic fan, forgetting the playoffs are still going on is absolutely acceptable (and I wouldn't be that surprised if fans from L.A. and Orlando have forgotten, too) for the sole reason that the Conference Finals ended five days ago.

Five days! If a best-of-five series started immediately after the Magic clinched their trip to the Finals, there would have been enough time to finish it before Game 1 of the NBA Finals started (if it was a 3-0 sweep).

Five days! That was long enough for LeBron to leave the court without shaking any hands, stand up the media, come up with an excuse and talk to the media the next day about it, have David Stern want to talk to you about it, maybe talk to him about it, have a benign growth removed, and be back at home resting comfortably by tip-off.

Five days! That was long enough for Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins to travel from Florida to the friggin' moon - a total of about 240,000 miles!

Five days! That's long enough for wives to make their husbands watch everything from Steel Magnolias to The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood to make up for the months of neglect sports brought to their lives.

And it is long enough for the NBA to lose all of the momentum earned through two hard-fought, could-have-easily-gone-the-other way conference championships - not mention all of the great series that came before those.

Why would they do this? Three days would have been fine, but five days is poor marketing. We have experienced one of the best playoffs in recent history. And it's not just the drama of nail-biting finishes, but the drama itself has brought more and more viewers back to watching NBA action. Compared to last year's playoffs, TV ratings were up over 30 percent for Eastern and Western Conference Championships.

But a lot of that momentum is gone now, and barring outstanding game-winning shots or even a brawl in Game 1 or 2, the NBA Finals - TV ratings-wise - will fall considerably short of what they could have been.

LeBron's Postgame Behavior

I don't blame LeBron James for not shaking hands with any Magic player after losing the Eastern Conference Finals last Saturday.

I don't blame LeBron James for not making himself available to the media.

I don't blame LeBron James for not wanting to talk to anyone after playing his heart out and still losing.

He is still only 24 years old, and he showed it. Plus, throughout his entire career, I don't believe he has ever lost a series he was expected to win. It was a first and it stung. I can't blame him for that.

I can't blame him, but I do have some problems with his post-series behavior.

First, let's say Kobe Bryant had done the same thing. Any Kobe-hater would have been rounding up all of the friends, pitchforks, and torches he or she could find, and they would not rest until the mob was satisfied. There is no denying an act like that would have caused irreparable harm to Kobe.

Second, since he was a junior in high school, LeBron has had to deal with the media. His poise and composure while interacting with the media has drawn all sorts of praise. How do you all of a sudden not realize how your actions will look? How not shaking any of your opponents' hands will look? How not talking to the media that built you up will look? It just doesn't make sense. He should and does know better.

Third, it makes him look like a sore loser.

He recently said, "It's hard for me to congratulate somebody after you just lose to them. I'm a winner. It's not being a poor sport or anything like that. If somebody beats you up, you're not going to congratulate them. That doesn't make sense to me. I'm a competitor. That's what I do. It doesn't make sense for me to go over and shake somebody's hand."

Just because he says "it's not being a poor sport," it doesn't mean it's true. As it turns out, this isn't the first group of handshakes he has managed to dodge. Last year, he skipped out on the Celts, and the year before that, he left the court after a quick hug/butt-slap from the Spurs' Bruce Bowen.

It actually looks like it is "being a poor sport." I'm surprised he didn't take the ball with him.

Finally, he can't choose when and when not to be the NBA's "Golden Boy." He can't choose when and when not to be the face of the Cavaliers. He has to take the good with the bad. An NBA career is not going to be all Nike and Powerade commercials. It's not going to be all ESPYs and MVPs. It's not even going to be all puppets in your likeness.

You have to be able to answer questions after losing, as well as you do when you sweep the first two opponents. Nobody really cares all that much about what Mo Williams thinks of the loss. They (not just the media, but all of the fans, too) want to hear the MVP's thoughts.

You can't be the man, without being a man.